Senior Seminar in Advanced Composition and Rhetoric Purpose
For the audio essay, you will create a 3-5 minute audio essay script and recording ready for radio play or podcasting. The script should profile an issue, person, or place of significance to an Atlanta community. This essay also acts as a general introduction to your final documentary project. The essay genre is creative nonfiction, specifically the literary journalistic style profiles described in our readings from Telling True Stories. Your goal is to document “reality”—yours or somebody else’s. This essay is presented in first person narrative form so your goal is to be as descriptive as possible with your language. Address the members of the class as your listeners and keep in mind that we are a very diverse audience.
Process Draft a script: Your goal for the script will be to establish how the piece will start, how transitions will be made, what the story line is and how it emerges, and how it will conclude. You first want to write the text and indicate music as audio cues. Your audio essay script should be formatted like the example scripts we will read in class. Be sure the script is approximately 3-5 minutes long (read out loud slowly).
Peer Review: Your goal during this class is to practice reading your script aloud with your small group in class and to get feedback from your peers. Be sure to read through the script during our peer review session to judge its impact and also whether or not it will exceed the time limit. Take turns reading aloud and then discuss ideas for improvement and revision using the evaluation criteria on the grading rubric.
Record your narrative: You will use Audacity or GarageBand software to record your essay, a process which we will practice during our software workshops during class.
Select music: Use the "Podsafe Music" websites shown in class to find an appropriate soundtrack and musical transition device.
Revise and re-record your narrative: Listen to your recording and make modifications to the script and your vocal delivery as needed. You will use the audio tracks and the waveform visuals of the software during this process to "mix" your voice with music, and then amplify, enhance and modify the recording to achieve effective rhetorical and sonic elements in your essay.
Requirements
Your essay will be evaluated in terms of the script you write as well as the basic technical quality and performance of the final recording that combines your narration with music. You will save and turn in an actual recording in MP3 format and we will post them to our iTunes class site. You will also turn in your written script and a written reflection about your composing process.
Grading Rubric
Guidelines for Audio Essay 1. Creates a believable, emotional, dramatic voice that is appropriate to your subject. (20 points)
Less than successful.........................................Medium success.........................................Highly successful Comment:
2. Emphasizes larger theme by zooming in and out on subject and avoids only summary narrative. (10 points) Less than successful.........................................Medium success.........................................Highly successful Comment:
3. Provides a strong narrative arc (beginning, middle, turning point and end) with structure /arrangement. (10 points) Less than successful.........................................Medium success.........................................Highly successful Comment:
4. Offers a three-dimensional look at a person, place, or event (strategic use of details). (10 points) Less than successful.........................................Medium success.........................................Highly successful Comment:
5. Introduction quickly and clearly creates a scene or situation, creates tension and context. (10 points) Less than successful.........................................Medium success.........................................Highly successful Comment:
6. Creates an appropriate cadence, style, and tone. Sensory description puts your audience in the scene. (10 points) Less than successful.........................................Medium success.........................................Highly successful Comment:
7. Uses music with purpose and doesn’t let it dominate. (10 points)
Less than successful.........................................Medium success.........................................Highly successful Comment:
8. Creates a unified message and a fresh take on something. (20 points)
Less than successful.........................................Medium success.........................................Highly successful
Total Points: Comments:
Student Works (used with permission)
Audio Essays by members of the Senior Seminar in Advanced Composition and Rhetoric, Georgia State University. For educational use only.
Go to http://mhocks.tumblr.com/ or email mhocks@gsu.edu for examples.
Course Syllabus
Reflection Questions
1. How would you describe your composition process for this audio essay? How was it different from other compositions you have created? Were there any similarities?
2. Compare writing your script to reading your written script aloud to what you then heard when listening back to yourself in the recording. How would you describe the differences between writing, reading aloud and hearing the recording?
3. How did you experience other people in the room when you were reading aloud? When you were recording your file? Did these experiences change or somehow affect your sense of an audience?
4. Did the visual display of the sound file itself (i.e., the wave form on the screen) help you understand the sound of your voice at all? If yes, how so? If not, why not?
5. What did you do to manipulate the sound file once it was recorded? Did manipulating the sound file visually with tracks and other software tools change the structure or meaning of your essay in any way?
6. How did you change audible elements of pacing, rhythm, volume or other elements as you worked on your recorded sound file?
7. What did these recorded audio essays tell you about your own voice? Did listening to the recording and working on it with software show you anything new about your essay?
8. What do you most like about your final audio essay? What would you most like to improve?
Student Reflections
Select observations summarized from student reflections on the audio essay project
Voice - how immediate, personal or conversational my voice sounds when I listen to its recording.
Performance - my uses of vocal inflection, pacing, intonation to create drama. How the recording software helps me mitigate my fear of speaking and to see this process as different from either a live spoken performance or a silent written text.
Music - how song choice helps create mood, enhances affect, and allows me to create audible transitional devices.
Visuals - how the waveforms on each audio track help me to adjust volume, amplify meaning and intensity, create silence, and emphasize transitions between parts of the essay. How the waveforms do NOT change how I think of my voice or how I modify performance.
Process - how this composing process was creative (both in content and form), recursive, and different from literary or rhetorical analysis. How I changed my writing once I played back the recording. How audio becomes technically challenging once the software becomes the primary medium.
Contact
Mary E. Hocks
Department of English
Georgia State University
P.O. Box 3970
Atlanta, GA 30302-3970 mhocks@gsu.edu
Sonic Composition Within the Rhetorics of Sound
Mary Hocks, Georgia State UniversityAssignment: Creative Nonfiction Audio Essay
Senior Seminar in Advanced Composition and RhetoricPurpose
For the audio essay, you will create a 3-5 minute audio essay script and recording ready for radio play or podcasting. The script should profile an issue, person, or place of significance to an Atlanta community. This essay also acts as a general introduction to your final documentary project. The essay genre is creative nonfiction, specifically the literary journalistic style profiles described in our readings from Telling True Stories. Your goal is to document “reality”—yours or somebody else’s. This essay is presented in first person narrative form so your goal is to be as descriptive as possible with your language. Address the members of the class as your listeners and keep in mind that we are a very diverse audience.
Process
Draft a script: Your goal for the script will be to establish how the piece will start, how transitions will be made, what the story line is and how it emerges, and how it will conclude. You first want to write the text and indicate music as audio cues. Your audio essay script should be formatted like the example scripts we will read in class. Be sure the script is approximately 3-5 minutes long (read out loud slowly).
Peer Review: Your goal during this class is to practice reading your script aloud with your small group in class and to get feedback from your peers. Be sure to read through the script during our peer review session to judge its impact and also whether or not it will exceed the time limit. Take turns reading aloud and then discuss ideas for improvement and revision using the evaluation criteria on the grading rubric.
Record your narrative: You will use Audacity or GarageBand software to record your essay, a process which we will practice during our software workshops during class.
Select music: Use the "Podsafe Music" websites shown in class to find an appropriate soundtrack and musical transition device.
Revise and re-record your narrative: Listen to your recording and make modifications to the script and your vocal delivery as needed. You will use the audio tracks and the waveform visuals of the software during this process to "mix" your voice with music, and then amplify, enhance and modify the recording to achieve effective rhetorical and sonic elements in your essay.
Requirements
Your essay will be evaluated in terms of the script you write as well as the basic technical quality and performance of the final recording that combines your narration with music. You will save and turn in an actual recording in MP3 format and we will post them to our iTunes class site. You will also turn in your written script and a written reflection about your composing process.
Grading Rubric
Guidelines for Audio Essay
1. Creates a believable, emotional, dramatic voice that is appropriate to your subject. (20 points)
Less than successful.........................................Medium success.........................................Highly successful
Comment:
2. Emphasizes larger theme by zooming in and out on subject and avoids only summary narrative. (10 points)
Less than successful.........................................Medium success.........................................Highly successful
Comment:
3. Provides a strong narrative arc (beginning, middle, turning point and end) with structure /arrangement. (10 points)
Less than successful.........................................Medium success.........................................Highly successful
Comment:
4. Offers a three-dimensional look at a person, place, or event (strategic use of details). (10 points)
Less than successful.........................................Medium success.........................................Highly successful
Comment:
5. Introduction quickly and clearly creates a scene or situation, creates tension and context. (10 points)
Less than successful.........................................Medium success.........................................Highly successful
Comment:
6. Creates an appropriate cadence, style, and tone. Sensory description puts your audience in the scene. (10 points)
Less than successful.........................................Medium success.........................................Highly successful
Comment:
7. Uses music with purpose and doesn’t let it dominate. (10 points)
Less than successful.........................................Medium success.........................................Highly successful
Comment:
8. Creates a unified message and a fresh take on something. (20 points)
Less than successful.........................................Medium success.........................................Highly successful
Total Points: Comments:
Student Works (used with permission)
Audio Essays by members of the Senior Seminar in Advanced Composition and Rhetoric, Georgia State University. For educational use only.
Go to http://mhocks.tumblr.com/ or email mhocks@gsu.edu for examples.
Course Syllabus
Reflection Questions
1. How would you describe your composition process for this audio essay? How was it different from other compositions you have created? Were there any similarities?2. Compare writing your script to reading your written script aloud to what you then heard when listening back to yourself in the recording. How would you describe the differences between writing, reading aloud and hearing the recording?
3. How did you experience other people in the room when you were reading aloud? When you were recording your file? Did these experiences change or somehow affect your sense of an audience?
4. Did the visual display of the sound file itself (i.e., the wave form on the screen) help you understand the sound of your voice at all? If yes, how so? If not, why not?
5. What did you do to manipulate the sound file once it was recorded? Did manipulating the sound file visually with tracks and other software tools change the structure or meaning of your essay in any way?
6. How did you change audible elements of pacing, rhythm, volume or other elements as you worked on your recorded sound file?
7. What did these recorded audio essays tell you about your own voice? Did listening to the recording and working on it with software show you anything new about your essay?
8. What do you most like about your final audio essay? What would you most like to improve?
Student Reflections
Select observations summarized from student reflections on the audio essay projectContact
Mary E. HocksDepartment of English
Georgia State University
P.O. Box 3970
Atlanta, GA 30302-3970
mhocks@gsu.edu